David Omoregie

Early life and career

A member of Pembrokeshire Harriers and then Cardiff Amateur Athletic Club, Omoregie took part in athletics from a young age and focused on the combined track and field events. Born in Durham, England, both his parents emigrated from Nigeria at age twenty. In 2011 his father died of cancer shortly after his sister had died in a car crash. Omoregie focused on athletics and his schoolwork as a tribute to them and received five A stars in his GCSEs that year. He was the Welsh youth champion in the pentathlon in 2012 then won the English indoor junior championship in the men's heptathlon in 2013. That year he began to focus more on his best event – sprint hurdling. At the 2013 European Athletics Junior Championships he set a best of 13.45 seconds for the junior 110 m hurdles in qualifying before placing fifth in the final. He was Welsh junior champion in the hurdles and also runner-up at the English junior championship. His hurdling talents invited comparisons to Colin Jackson, a former world champion and member of the same Cardiff club.

Omoregie progressed further in 2014 season, starting with a third place at the British Indoor Athletics Championships in the 60 metres hurdles (in a personal best of 7.82 seconds). Over the junior hurdles, he ran 7.50 seconds indoors, which equalled the World indoor junior record of Konstadinos Douvalidis. Outdoors, he won the 2014 British U20 Championships with a European junior record of 13.17 seconds for the 99 cm hurdles event. This was later beaten that year by Wilhem Belocian of France. He came up against his rival at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Athletics and, though Belocian won, Omoregie took the bronze medal. Over the senior height hurdles, Omoregie set a best of 13.53 seconds that year and was the winner at the Welsh Athletics Championships.

Senior career

His senior career proper began in 2015 and he competed in the indoor circuit. He was runner-up to Lawrence Clarke at the British Indoor Athletics Championships and made the semi-finals at the 2015 European Athletics Indoor Championships (his senior international debut). He moved to Loughborough and began working with Benke Blomkvist – coach to Dai Greene. He won the British under-23 title outdoors and followed this with a win at the 2015 European Athletics U23 Championships in 13.63 seconds. He slightly improved his best towards the end of the season, with 13.50 seconds at the London Grand Prix.

At the 2016 Welsh Indoor Championships he was runner-up to David King while at the British Indoor Championships he came third after Andrew Pozzi and Lawrence Clarke. He topped the podium at the British Universities Championships indoor and outdoors, however. He was beaten into second place by King at the British U23 Championships and was behind him in fourth at the British Athletics Championships. A sudden improvement to 13.25 seconds came in Loughborough. This moved him to fifth on the all-time British rankings for the 110 m hurdles, but was a week after the deadline for Olympic qualifying times. He was fifth at the London Grand Prix that year and won the English Athletics Championships. He demonstrated his run in Loughborough was not a one-off with a win at the ISTAF Berlin, recording a new best of 13.24 seconds and beating world medallist Pascal Martinot-Lagarde.

Personal bests

All information from All-Athletics profile

National titles